Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Supply-Demand, didn't we repeal that law?

In many parts of the country, glass—the original recyclable—is
becoming too expensive to handle, placing a growing burden on towns and
businesses. ....

The reason has little to do with supply and demand.

She then produces an article that demonstrates the complete opposite of what we have bolded in the above. For instance;

Curt Bucey, an executive vice president at the company [Strategic Materials Inc.], said that when
used glass arrived at its plants 20 years ago, it was 98% glass and 2%
other castoffs, such as paper labels and bottle caps. These days, some
truckloads can include up to 50% garbage, he said.

So the supply has changed, and so has the price the country's largest glass-recycling company is willing to pay;

The company has had to invest in expensive machinery to separate the
glass from the trash, then has to dispose of the garbage, making
recycling a much costlier equation.

Strategic Materials used to pay for all the glass it received, but these
days it is charging between $10 to $40 a ton to accept some truckloads
of used glass that are heavily contaminated with trash.

But that has little to do with supply and demand. Well, maybe that's just some greedy businessman's opinion.

In Charleston, the city’s recycling center stopped accepting glass in
November because it was too costly to process and transport.

“There’s
little revenue for it locally, and it is very expensive to send it to a
processor, as the weight is a big factor,” said James Young, executive director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority, which receives the city’s recyclables.

Not that that has anything to do with resolving surplus and shortage through the pricing mechanism.

“When you’re losing money and time processing glass for not much
revenue, it is just a losing battle, and not sustainable,” Mr. Young
said.